Copyright © 2009 John Lindal. All rights reserved.
Commander! We have a distress call from the fourth planet. A huge monster appeared out of nowhere and is tearing up a city, and the locals are unable to subdue it.
Dust off the BattleSphere. I’ll wake Roger.
The BattleSphere, sir?
asked Skip.
It’s out only craft with hyperspace capability, and even though that risks disturbing the signature left behind by the creature’s appearance, we don’t have time to fly in sub-light. Hurry up!
Aye aye, sir!
All systems are green, sir. Clear for hyperspace.
Commander Plantain pushed the button and leaned back. 5...4...3...2...1...The view screens blanked as they entered hyperspace and then activated again a moment later to show the city below. Even from this height, the damage was obvious. Smoke billowed from many of the skyscrapers and several of the arcologies, and the air was abuzz with small craft fighting the chaos. Plantain fired the jets sparingly, letting gravity take them down.
Status report!
I have visual on the monster. It’s huge!
replied Skip.
We have to get it away from the city. Ready the tractor beams.
Already online, sir,
replied Roger.
Good man! Skip, scan the area for any sign of an entrance signature. It has to have come from somewhere!
I’ve got amateur video off the datanet. One frame, it’s not there. The next one, it is. Nothing in the visible spectrum, not even with processing. I ’m launching a probe now to scan the location.
We’re in tractor range, sir,
said Roger. What the hell? I can’t get a lock! What’s this thing made of? Teflon?
Plan B,
replied Plantain. Kill it.
Aye aye, sir!
A bright beam of energy lanced out at the monster. It roared and looked up.
That should have cut it in half!
exclaimed Skip.
The ship lurched as Plantain dodged a fireball belched by the monster.
Plan C! Lure it away from the city. Keep it mad, Roger.
A steady trickle of rockets flew out of the BattleSphere at the monster as Plantain flew away from the city’s center.
Sir, none of the rockets have any effect, either. I’ve tried all the different types.
When we’re far enough away, try the other energy weapons.
Aye aye, sir.
Skip, any readings from the probe?
Nothing, sir. It really does seem to have appeared out of nowhere, even if I know that’s not possible.
Varicolored beams, pulses, and blasts flew from the BattleSphere.
Still no apparent damage, sir.
Maybe it adapts too fast? Try randomizing the phase, color, and charm of the quark plasma blaster at the femtosecond level.
There was a pause as Roger reconfigured the weapon. An iridescent beam shot out.
Still nothing!
This is going to take more firepower than we can safely use around here. Skip, get a hyperspace transport lock on a couple of dense asteroids. I’m going to try to take this thing with us to the Kuiper belt, and I want monster-on-the-rocks the instant we emerge from hyperspace.
Plantain expanded the range of the hyperspace portal while Skip scanned the asteroid belt for planetoids with the right vectors.
I have a lock on several pairs of asteroids.
OK. Prepare for transport.
The view screens came back on just in time to see the first pair of asteroids explode on impact. Several more explosions followed.
What the hell is this thing made of? It’s still moving!
More than just moving!
Plantain exclaimed as the BattleSphere dodged one protocomet, only to be hit by a second one. Hit it with everything we’ve got!
Hellburner away!
After the explosion died down, Skip cried, That only cleared away the asteroid debris! I’m still not picking up any signs of damage! No...wait...we dinged it.
Again,
said Plantain.
Hellburner away!
This still isn’t going to work,
said Skip. We’ll run out of hellburners long before this thing stops ticking.
GHQ, this is Commander Jack Plantain. Requesting permission to use planetbusters on hostile intruder in Kuiper belt. Attaching sensor data indicating zero to minimal damage from hellburners.
There was a short pause. Plantain used the time to dodge more snowballs and put more distance between them and the monster.
Approved, Commander. Proceed with caution. GHQ out.
Planetbuster away!
The view screens dimmed to avoid blinding everybody with the intensity of the explosion.
It’s still there, but that clearly hurt.
Again!
Planetbuster away!
Again!
Planetbuster away!
Hang on,
said Skip as the third fireball died down, I’m picking up something new. Oh, crap, get us out of here! Hyperspace! Now!
His last words before the ship was vaporized were, Oh, my God, we’ve been charging a battery!
Relief flooded every fiber of her being. Relief, followed by elation. It had worked! Her desperate gamble had paid off! The rift was open. She lay back as her pod’s engines activated and steered towards it. There was the familiar moment of nothingness and then she was through. It was full of stars!
At last! A fresh universe! They had been stuck in the previous one for far too long. Always, they had easily found another one with plenty of time to spare before exhausting the resources of the current one. But this time, they had gotten stuck. They had been forced to build stasis pods to preserve everybody as she and her colleagues continued to search without success. As the heat death had approached, more and more of them had been forced into statis so the remaining energy could be harnessed for the search, until she was all alone. By the time she had found this new universe, oh so gloriously young!, there wasn’t even enough power left to open a rift. She had been forced to resort to subterfuge, to trick the sentients into quickly providing the necessary energy. She shuddered at the thought that she might not even have been able to insert her machine inside a galaxy, or that the sentients might have been powerful enough to destroy it. What if they had thrown it into the local star! She put such thoughts aside. This was a time to celebrate!
The BattleSphere armada emerged from hyperspace just moments after contact was lost with Plantain’s ship, just in time to see the first wave of pods pour through the rift and scatter in all directions...